More backtracking - here is a summary of what was presented on Monday last week.
The workshop was introduced by Torsten Eriksson from Stockholm University. He gave a general introduction to databases (DBs), which I found very useful, as I am only starting to think about setting up DBs. Here are some of the suggestions he made for databasing:
1.) Before you start setting up your DB, decide (as far as possible) what you want to put into your database, 2.) Identify the relationship between objects (including the nature of the relationships - one to many vs. one to one, 3.) Identify the attributes of the objects you want to put into the DB, 4.) Identify unique identifiers for each object (attributes should only be dependent on unique identifiers).
As a good exercise, the basic structure of the DB can be sketched, where objects become tables and attributes become columns in the tables. The data type must be specified for each column, unique IDs are columns that may not be empty and, as the name suggest, must be unique. Relationships are then modelled between tables, using the IDs as 'connectors'.
Torsten also suggested that one use one of the open source software to set up DBs, because they are accessible to everyone everywhere. One suggestion that was made is mySQL. There are also DBs that have been designed specifically for certain purposes, e.g. the ontology DBs mentioned in previous blogs, Specify and MX.

Katja Seltmann (see blog on ontologies below) followed with an introduction to MX as an example of a taxonomic database. It is web-based and the core data object is an operational taxonomic unit (OTU), which means that data can be entered for any taxonomi levels. See more here.

In the afternoon Katja and Torsten co-hosted a tutorial during which we were expected to link up the components of the Darwin Core components. To assist in the set-up of the DB, we downloaded phpMyAdmin, which provides an interface for mySQL and, and is therefore a little easier (particularly in the beginning) than entirely coding a DB. And, even if the DB is created using phpMyAdmin, the sql code is provided, which is a definite advantage. Installation of phpMyAdmin was semi-complicated, as it wouldn't just run in Windows. However, some web-searches resulted in Katja establishing that it may be best to download mySQL and phpMyAdmin together using XAMPP. I have tried phpMyAdmin a little, and it seems relatively intuitive. I hope there'll be time in the next week to further develop my DB.